12 JULY 1890, Page 3

Mr. Courtney, in distributing the prizes to the faculties of

Arts and Laws in University College, London, yesterday week, referred to the new agonies of competition which men had to sustain now that they had another sex to compete with. The Scotch boy who objected to regeneration on the ground that if he were "born again," he might be " aiblins a lassie," would not perhaps feel the objection so strongly now, considering that, even if born a lassie, he might turn out to be a more successful person than he would be as a boy. Mr. Courtney did not believe in the supposed over-pressure produced by competition, and thought that experience shows that the most successful competitors at school and college are also, as a rule, the most successful in later life. Doubtless they are, and partly because they are the strongest to begin with. But does not the competition press very hardly on those who are not the most successful, and whose physique renders it impossible for them to be the most successful; and are not a great number of these, women ?